Training to improve the Haitian education system

The Ministry of National Education and Vocational Training (MENFP), the UNESCO International Institute for Educational Planning (IIEP-UNESCO) and the European Union (EU) launched this week in Haiti the project ‘Improving the Haitian education system through planning and strategic management.’ With funding from the EU, this institutional collaboration aims to strengthen the MENFP's capacity to better plan the education system. Support from IIEP-UNESCO aims to improve the planning and management practices of the educational administration in Haiti over the period 2018-2021.

As part of this project, a training programme in educational planning starts this week for education officials from the Departmental Directorates of Education (DDE). It aims to improve the participant’s knowledge and skills in operational and strategic planning. Eighty people from the country's ten DDEs will take part in the training.

The new programme starts with a session on 12 and 13 November at the MENFP in Port-au-Prince, bringing together the Minister's Office, the General Inspectorate, the Director General, the DDE Coordinator, the Directors of the Department of Planning and External Cooperation (DPCE), the Studies and Programming Unit (UEP), the Directorate of Training and Development, the National Office for Partnership in Education, the European Union, and the UNESCO Office in Haiti.

This scoping session will launch the project and help convey to key MENFP actors the role and autonomy of the DDE’s in educational planning. Discussions will focus on the relationship between the Ministry and its departments, but also on micro-planning issues. Participants will also discuss the content of the training programme going forward.

The first year of this programme will focus on carrying out diagnostics of the educational situation in the ten DDEs and improving the quality of their annual activity plans. The training will propose three major modules from mid-November 2018 to the end of June 2019. The first module will thus be designed to familiarize participants with the key concepts of strategic planning and the processes of educational planning.

Focused on the needs of participants, this programme will enable them to more effectively perform their current tasks. It will prepare the Directorates and Departments to take on a more autonomous role in the future and will focus on improving collaboration between members of different teams. Successful participants will receive a certificate of achievement.

In recent years, the Government of Haiti has made education - in terms of access and quality - a political priority. The government has also shown a willingness to deconcentrate the public administration. However, many challenges remain, as there is not enough space for all children to enrol in school and the quality of teaching remains low. Basic education is unaffordable for many children with a high average cost of tuition. Better planning and management of the education system at the departmental level plays a key role in making the system as a whole, more effective, fair, and better adapted to the realities of both schools and students in the country.